Brad Gillis with Ozzy . Brads time

[sytharnia1560]

Speak Of The Devil is one of my all-time favorite albums and what really got me into metal and listening to Gillis' playing is what really inspired me to learn to play guitar.

The soundboard recordings from the 26th & 27th sets are up on YT - and interesting to compare the two nights' playing with each other. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath doesn't appear on either because it was recorded at soundcheck :

shit even the bit where Ozzy says "we're gonna do a number about cocaine, it's a number call Snowblind" was not from either live recording .. bloody hell

 

[thegame]

I’m 100% convinced Ozzy is the luckiest guy in the entire history of hard rock/metal. Just by having the good fortune of being surrounded by vastly superior songwriters, lyricists, musicians, etc time and time again. I’m not saying he’s talentless but he’s always been outshined in any band or project he’s ever been a part of. That’s not typical for a superstar frontman. He’s got a unique, if limited voice and a good ear for creating vocal melodies but that’s really the extent of his musicianship.

 

[Speeddemon]

I can’t find ‘Flying High Again’ with Rob Trujillio anywhere?!
I’ve heard about this for years but never heard this version.
Can somebody post it?

Here ya go.

 

[skoora]

I’m 100% convinced Ozzy is the luckiest guy in the entire history of hard rock/metal. Just by having the good fortune of being surrounded by vastly superior songwriters, lyricists, musicians, etc time and time again. I’m not saying he’s talentless but he’s always been outshined in any band or project he’s ever been a part of. That’s not typical for a superstar frontman. He’s got a unique, if limited voice and a good ear for creating vocal melodies but that’s really the extent of his musicianship.

Absolutely. He’s only as good as the musicians he’s with. I like his singing but ever since he locked in on Zakk the decline of creativity and interesting melodies started. Zakk brings no variety in harmony or even rhythm to the table, as technically proficient as he is.

 

[hammered]

Honestly, no difference. Randy would have finished the tour and probably said hell no to doing Sabbath tunes and a Speak of the Devil live album. It is pretty much well known that he didn't like playing Sabbath tunes and also pretty clear that he was fed up with Ozzy's antics and wanted to move on. Maybe they would have done a third album and that could have been cool but I think he was always destined to split from that scene. So you might not have had Brad and you would have moved on to Jake.

Then they might have done a Blizzard 25 yr anniversary tour or something just to pad their bank accounts because Randy might have ended up broke and only getting pennies from Jackson or MXR for endorsements..

In Rudy`s book he says that Randy wanted no part of a live album of Sabbath covers and at the time it drove a big wedge between Randy and Ozzy. Randy finally caved in and agreed to doing the live album , one more studio album and tour

 

[jb44]

I can’t find ‘Flying High Again’ with Rob Trujillio anywhere?!
I’ve heard about this for years but never heard this version.
Can somebody post it?

Osbournes, like the greedy POSs that they are, were screwing over Daisley & Kerslake. Trujillo & drummer Mike Bordin were hired for the "remaster" sessions of BOO & DOAMM albums so that Daisley & Kerslake don't get writing credit & royalties from the "remasters".

This is the same approach Taylor Swift has been using re-recording her albums so that she "owns" the masters even though the majority of the music from her albums wasn't written by her.

 

[dave74]

Absolutely. He’s only as good as the musicians he’s with. I like his singing but ever since he locked in on Zakk the decline of creativity and interesting melodies started. Zakk brings no variety in harmony or even rhythm to the table, as technically proficient as he is.

Just curious if you like NRFTW, Zak's first album of course. That is where it ended for me with Ozzy, but I still love that first Zak album.

 

[GreatRedDragon]

Osbournes, like the greedy POSs that they are, were screwing over Daisley & Kerslake. Trujillo & drummer Mike Bordin were hired for the "remaster" sessions of BOO & DOAMM albums so that Daisley & Kerslake don't get writing credit & royalties from the "remasters".

This is the same approach Taylor Swift has been using re-recording her albums so that she "owns" the masters even though the majority of the music from her albums wasn't written by her.

I believe it was just to deny them performance royalties, an issue that initially flared up specifically over Diary of a Madman crediting Rudy and Tommy as the rhythm section. Their songwriting credits remained in place.

The 2002 remasters is also when The Ultimate Sin, Just Say Ozzy and Live & Loud were pulled out of print. Why? They all feature "Shot in the Dark," which had been the subject of another lawsuit. Phil Soussan co-wrote the song with his previous band and brought it with him when he joined Ozzy's band. Ozzy got a co-writing credit with Soussan and the song became a massive hit for Ozzy and the previous band was now thinking "what the fuck?" So inevitably, every album that featured the song was straight-up pulled out of circulation in 2002, except for the Ozzman Cometh which just swapped it for Miracle Man (but now The Ozzman Cometh has itself been pulled out of print over the song "Back on Earth," which was Ozzy's one proper solo single/video between Ozzmosis and Down to Earth). The song only came back to Ozzy's live set in 2010 and after that it remained a staple on all of his tours, just as it had been from 86-92.

And of course, it would be remiss to mention the 2002 remixing of Bark at the Moon, which unlike the other 2002 mistakes remains unrectified. Blizzard and Diary have been restored, Ultimate Sin and the two live albums are back in circulation, but the original version of Bark at the Moon has been done away with for over 20 years.

 

[jb44]

I believe it was just to deny them performance royalties, an issue that initially flared up specifically over Diary of a Madman crediting Rudy and Tommy as the rhythm section. Their songwriting credits remained in place.

The 2002 remasters is also when The Ultimate Sin, Just Say Ozzy and Live & Loud were pulled out of print. Why? They all feature "Shot in the Dark," which had been the subject of another lawsuit. Phil Soussan co-wrote the song with his previous band and brought it with him when he joined Ozzy's band. Ozzy got a co-writing credit with Soussan and the song became a massive hit for Ozzy and the previous band was now thinking "what the fuck?" So inevitably, every album that featured the song was straight-up pulled out of circulation in 2002, except for the Ozzman Cometh which just swapped it for Miracle Man (but now The Ozzman Cometh has itself been pulled out of print over the song "Back on Earth," which was Ozzy's one proper solo single/video between Ozzmosis and Down to Earth). The song only came back to Ozzy's live set in 2010 and after that it remained a staple on all of his tours, just as it had been from 86-92.

And of course, it would be remiss to mention the 2002 remixing of Bark at the Moon, which unlike the other 2002 mistakes remains unrectified. Blizzard and Diary have been restored, Ultimate Sin and the two live albums are back in circulation, but the original version of Bark at the Moon has been done away with for over 20 years.

Thanks for clarifying.

 

[skoora]

Just curious if you like NRFTW, Zak's first album of course. That is where it ended for me with Ozzy, but I still love that first Zak album.

I can’t say I’m a big fan of the record. Partly because I really don’t like the way the drums sound. Miracle Man is a standout. I saw the tour and Zakk did a 20 minute solo which felt like it was 15 minutes too long. All I could think was they could have played 4-6 songs in the time taken up by Zakk And Castillo’s solos. I liked extended solo’s when I was 15 but grew out of liking them all that much by the time ‘89/‘90 rolled around. Especially when you noticed the set lists stagnating and the solo spots eating up that precious real estate that could be a different song for once. Years ago I made a version of 100,000 years from Alive that cuts out most of the drum solo and I even made an edit on Still of the Night to shorten the middle nonsense a little. Sony Soundforge made me a monster! . Loved that software.
No More Tears is a great song but a meh album. I haven’t listened to it as an album since the early 90’s.
Zakk had some good stuff with Pride and Glory and the very early Black Label stuff but he was terrible for putting just too much shit on the songs. The amount of vocal and guitar overdubs he did gets ridiculous. He would routinely, through production, suffocate the groove of the song, which at times was pretty bangin’.

Listening to solo Ozzy stops at Ultimate Sin for me. Which is no biggie. it’s not like Dio (RIP) did much better after Last in Line.

 

[skoora]

Here ya go.

This has Mike Bordin on drums too, right?

 

[jabps]

I believe it was just to deny them performance royalties, an issue that initially flared up specifically over Diary of a Madman crediting Rudy and Tommy as the rhythm section. Their songwriting credits remained in place.

The 2002 remasters is also when The Ultimate Sin, Just Say Ozzy and Live & Loud were pulled out of print. Why? They all feature "Shot in the Dark," which had been the subject of another lawsuit. Phil Soussan co-wrote the song with his previous band and brought it with him when he joined Ozzy's band. Ozzy got a co-writing credit with Soussan and the song became a massive hit for Ozzy and the previous band was now thinking "what the fuck?" So inevitably, every album that featured the song was straight-up pulled out of circulation in 2002, except for the Ozzman Cometh which just swapped it for Miracle Man (but now The Ozzman Cometh has itself been pulled out of print over the song "Back on Earth," which was Ozzy's one proper solo single/video between Ozzmosis and Down to Earth). The song only came back to Ozzy's live set in 2010 and after that it remained a staple on all of his tours, just as it had been from 86-92.

And of course, it would be remiss to mention the 2002 remixing of Bark at the Moon, which unlike the other 2002 mistakes remains unrectified. Blizzard and Diary have been restored, Ultimate Sin and the two live albums are back in circulation, but the original version of Bark at the Moon has been done away with for over 20 years.

Yep.

Daisley's book is fantastic, worth the read especially for the Oz stuff. That said it also goes to show that as a sideman and writer you do what you have to do to put food on the table. Even knowing you're probably gonna get ripped of by some artists.

I'll always treasure Blizzard, Diary, Mr Crowley Live EP and Tribute - it's all we're going to get of Randy but over the years I've come to despise Ozzy and Sharon. And Ozzy shares the guilt because he let it happen, he may have not been the person calling the shots but he was complicit. He knew. All of it was so easily rectified, just pay people what you owe them. What's hilariously sad is most people will not tolerate that attitude with friends or family but they will for people like Ozzy or even politicians. Weird.

 

[jabps]

Honestly, no difference. Randy would have finished the tour and probably said hell no to doing Sabbath tunes and a Speak of the Devil live album. It is pretty much well known that he didn't like playing Sabbath tunes and also pretty clear that he was fed up with Ozzy's antics and wanted to move on. Maybe they would have done a third album and that could have been cool but I think he was always destined to split from that scene. So you might not have had Brad and you would have moved on to Jake.

Then they might have done a Blizzard 25 yr anniversary tour or something just to pad their bank accounts because Randy might have ended up broke and only getting pennies from Jackson or MXR for endorsements..

Agreed. No clue what would have happened to Randy or even Ozzy's career but RR would have been gone from Ozzy for sure.

 

[Speeddemon]

This has Mike Bordin on drums too, right?

Yep. I do find that his drumming is less overbearing and modern mixing aside, a bit more in the vein of what Kerslake originally did, unlike Trujillo, who outright BUTCHERED the smooth, round, laid-back approach that Daisley had to his bass parts.

Imagine your wedding photos from the 90's with prime Michelle Pfeiffer as your wife...


...and then 10-20 years later or so, your best man somehow gets disgruntled with her, sends the photos to an editing room and now Michelle has been replaced with early 2000's Anna Nicole Smith or Jessica Simpson.

Sure, it's probably "more of everything" , but a lot more fake and a lot less classy too.

 

[Floyd Eye]

Yep.

Daisley's book is fantastic, worth the read especially for the Oz stuff. That said it also goes to show that as a sideman and writer you do what you have to do to put food on the table. Even knowing you're probably gonna get ripped of by some artists.

I'll always treasure Blizzard, Diary, Mr Crowley Live EP and Tribute - it's all we're going to get of Randy but over the years I've come to despise Ozzy and Sharon. And Ozzy shares the guilt because he let it happen, he may have not been the person calling the shots but he was complicit. He knew. All of it was so easily rectified, just pay people what you owe them. What's hilariously sad is most people will not tolerate that attitude with friends or family but they will for people like Ozzy or even politicians. Weird.

Absolutely. Fuck Sharon AND Ozzy.

I have Rudy and Bob's books. It's been a couple years since I read them though. I enjoyed both very much.

 

[Speeddemon]

I'm gonna get that one and probably throw my 2002 version away or give it to goodwill or something. Fuck that mix.

Quoting myself, but since I'm a man of my word, see the proof. Got the 2011 in today.
Goodbye rude butcher Trujillo, welcome back Bob Daisley (and Lee Kerslake of course).

Oh, and f*#k that editing/lay-out person at Epic records that reversed the order of 'Epic' and the number code on the side of Diary of a Madman.
OCD is triggered. I'm sure people with Anthrax (Island) and Slayer collections (American) etc. can relate...if you have all the CDs next to eachother, a nice uniformity in that layout...

 

[67mike]

So what if in an altered universe Randy didn’t crash and lived today. Randy would be here today possibly with ozzy; Ie jake, zakk and the rest of the players would be where? Would they even be and what would music be like? Imagine life without bark at the moon, shot in the dark, ultimate sin, mama, I’m coming home, no more tears? What if? It’s not; BUT would jake or Zakk ever been something, and how would music be different today. I think Zakk might have been an integral part of how music changed in late 80s to 90s. Jake not so much but zakk was and probably is still really influential regardless of what people think of his vibrato or pentatonic runs. There was something really different about him during that time. Ehhh. Just playing Saturday night what if while I wind down with a High Life beer

Randy was planning on leaving Ozzy after the tour he died on.

 

[67mike]

I used to think that was the case too, from stories but a more realistic version is presented in the video above, which also made a lot more sense. Gillis already knew some songs from a cover band he was in, got to rehearse with the band but no Ozzy. First time he played with Ozzy in a band setting was the his first night doing an actual show.
But all that will probably change when the next round of talking head vids circulate in 10 years.

That is what I recall hearing as well....Brad was covering Ozzy and Sabbath tunes already in a band.

He still absolutely kicked ass, and some frown on it....but I love Brad's usd of the floyd rose .